1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to ink jet or bubble jet printers which have multiple printing heads, and particularly relates to the provision of plural print modes for such printers, including the provision of a wide width print mode and a standard width print mode.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently-developed ink jet or bubble jet printers (collectively "ink jet printers") are provided with multiple ink jet print heads, such as two or three print heads. The multiple print heads, though mounted on a common carriage, are each capable of independent operation, thereby providing the ability to decrease overall printing time (by overlapped printing by each print head), or to increase overall ink capacity (by providing differently-colored inks in the ink reservoirs for each print head).
FIG. 1 illustrates diagrammatically a conventional ink jet printer having multiple print heads. Shown in FIG. 1 is an ink jet printer 10 having two print heads, namely print head A and print head B. The print heads are mounted for lateral reciprocal movement across a support surface for a recording medium, from the position indicated by solid lines to the position indicated by dotted lines. Print head A can print in area 11, print head B can print in area 12, and both print head A and print head B can print in fully overlapped relation in area 13. These areas all correspond in lateral width to standard A-4 size width or standard 81/2.times.11 inch width. Accordingly, a recording material loaded against paper base position 14, when advanced by printer 10 by unshown feeding means, can be printed upon by print head A, by print head B, or by print heads A and B in a fully overlapped mode.
The inventors of the present application have observed that, as a consequence of lateral and reciprocal movement of print heads A and B so as to be able to print in areas 11, 12 and 13, print head A must be able to scan over area 15, while print head B must be able to scan over area 16. Scan area 16 is larger than the printable area for standard width recording media (i.e., areas 11, 12 and 13). The additional scan width for head B, namely 16a, is not printed on and is essentially wasted.